


Strategy Games

by HappyLeech



Series: Noodleverse [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Forcing the elderly to make social media accounts, Friendship, Gen, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 22:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11954091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyLeech/pseuds/HappyLeech
Summary: Maybe becoming friends with global personality D.Va was a bad idea, 76 thought as his anonymity was stripped away by the internet, but it was nice to have someone to play games with.





	Strategy Games

When Jack Morrison, now going by Soldier 76, really met Hana Song, otherwise known as D.Va, they were both sitting in a run down, abandoned bar in the town of Eichenwalde.

He was new to Overwatch at that point, on his first mission outside of the training missions that Winston pushed them all through, and he didn’t feel like talking. It was, he figured, easier to keep his distance that way, and to keep Winston from announcing who he really was to the rest of the small team.

Lena was scouting— they'd received word that Talon was interested in _something_ to do with Balderich’s final resting place and Reinhardt had all but begged Winston to send people to investigate—while everyone else was seemingly chomping at the bit to get moving. Reinhardt and Torbjörn were talking, the taller man running his fingers along the bar where he'd etched in his name, Lucio, the musician and their healer, was double checking his equipment in one corner, looking out the large windows into the forest below, and D.Va was sitting with Jack on one partially crushed table, frowning at the holographic map in the middle.

It was a surprise that the map was still active—it had been ages since the battle that had left Reinhardt a wreck in the middle of the omnic crisis, once he'd heard of it—but Jack figured that it was solar powered like just about anything lately and luck had it that there were no leaves covering the sensors.

“This was their battle plan?” D.Va broke the silence with a small scoff, not loud enough to attract Reinhardt’s attention, but loud enough for Jack. “No wonder they were overrun…”

“I wouldn't mention that to Reinhardt,” Jack replied, watching as she jerked her head up like she forgot that he was sitting at the table with her. “But you're right. They left their entire left side open to a counter attack.”

A slow grin overtook her face, and D.Va nearly crowed in delight. “That's the longest sentence you've said to me so far, 76! And I know—if they'd only pushed from here, maybe they would have had a chance.”

By the time Lena returned with confirmation that Talon was there, Jack had found a piece of paper and was drawing up a mock-solution to the Eichenwalde siege with D.Va.

“D.Va! We have Talon activity moving towards the castle. What do you want to do?”

Reinhardt and Torbjörn moved to the back, by Lucio, to get Reinhardt equipped in his gear as D.Va thought. It still amazed Jack that someone so young outranked all of them—Reinhardt and Torbjörn were officially retired, Jack was technically dead, Lucio was a civilian, and Lena had never held an official rank in Overwatch—and was technically their commander.

Looking down at the paper between them, the paper that he folded up and shoved in a pocket as D.Va began to outline a plan of attack, Jack found he didn't mind so much.

* * *

 

The Eichenwalde mission was a partial success—they had managed to stop Talon and prevent them from getting whatever it was they were looking for, but had been unable to keep them from breaching the castle and they still had no idea what it was that the terrorist organization had been searching for—and for Jack that meant another week or two of avoiding Winston and Angela, spending time in the firing range, and running through his workouts in his quarters.

He didn't count on D.Va seeking him out on the third day back, a frown on her face and hands on her hips.  He was just finishing up his third round of target practice, trying to get as fast as he had been before the fall, when she interrupted.

“Don't you do anything other than spend time in here?” D.Va asked, watching as he put a bullet through a holographic head and took aim at another. “I've been trying to find you and I didn't think that I'd have to camp out in front of the training rooms to do so.”

Jack grunted, D.Va distraction enough to slow his response time by 30 milliseconds, and canceled out of the simulation. He wasn't shooting his best anyways—15 seconds slower than his last time.

“Why?”

D.Va grinned, and she moved closer to talk as he dismantled the pulse rifle and stowed it in the carrying case that he usually never used. “I wanted to talk strategies! Everyone else talks about missions and details like I need to be handled with kids gloves and you don't. It's refreshing…and none of the people close to my age are military.”

Jack nodded slowly. Lucio and Junkrat were civilians, Lena and D.Va didn’t seem to talk much, and Zenyatta was an omnic—an usually pacifist one at that. As for the others, he supposed it had something to do with how young D.Va looked and sounded, compared to himself or Winston. That or her gaming habit, but Jack could see it wasn't a hindrance to her abilities, instead helpful.

“You aren't a child,” he replied, slinging the carrying cases strap over his shoulder. “And you're military too. It only makes sense to treat you how you should be treated.”

“See? You get it! Now if you could only drill that into everyone else's heads…” she groused, walking beside him as he made his way back to his room to drop off the gun. “Anyways, can we talk? I want to ask your opinion of some of the MEKA battle plans.”

“The obsolete ones I assume.” Jack ignored how Angela seemed to be trying to motion to him, even as D.Va took it as an invitation to wave to the doctor. “Sure, why not. I thought Korea kept their battle strategies a secret, though?”

“We do, but these are obsolete, right?” She grinned, bouncing back on her heals as she waited for him to put away the gun in his room. “Besides, MEKA only allowed me to join this illegal operation on the condition that I brought something home to show for it, and new strats would be a bonus.”

He had wondered how the rising star of the Korean military had ended up working with Overwatch, but now he knew. Thinking of it, Jack was sure that was why Fareeha was with them too, although he was sure she was keeping an eye on everything for the Egyptian branch of Helix rather than looking for new battle strategies.

“Makes sense. So, where too?” D.Va motioned for him to fallow after and started walking down the hall to where he assumed her quarters where.

“My room-“ so he was right. “-because we imported our strategies into a cracked version of Civilization 8.”

At that, Jack had to laugh. “Was this a plot to get someone to play Civilization with you? Because I know a thing or two about the series.”

“No!” D.Va looked entirely indignant as he laughed, before shoving him with one arm. “But now I'll have to take that as a challenge, 76. Have you tried Civilization 9 yet? They really improved the graphics and added Omnics as a playable group. There was some, ah, controversy over that, though, because they use Mondatta as the leader.”

Jack winced behind the face mask, and shook his head. “How'd the Shambali take it?”

“They don't take issue with it—apparently they consulted a few members to make sure it fit their world views, but lots of human players and non-shambali omnics found it tasteless, especially since what happened.” D.Va paused. “I think Zen knows about it, but…it probably still hurts.”

Jack nodded as she keyed herself into her quarters and pushed the door open. It was larger than his rooms, to the extent that it was actually two rooms, plus a bathroom. Her bed and closet and such were on one side, but the majority of the space was taken up with electronics, posters, boxes, and an overly impressive computer setup.

“What's this stuff?” He asked, motioning to the boxes as D.Va loaded up one of her two computers, and she barely glanced over before grinning.

“Some of its merch that I need to sign— that pile there— and the rest is gifts from fans.” She pointed to the chair in front of the other computer. “Bring that over here.”

Jack complied, pulling it over and taking a seat as she got herself logged in. Her background was simple, not quite as extravagant as he'd thought it'd be, just a black background with her bunny and the MEKA symbol in the middle. It was, however, littered with file folders and applications.

“How do you find anything on here?” He asked, watching as she opened, then closed three folders.

“I don't, obviously.” D.Va muttered, opening a search bar and typing in a long line of Korean. That worked better than her randomly clicking into file folders, pulling up the icon for Civilization 8 and D.Va clicked into it. “It's an English copy with Korean subtitles, but we never needed the instructions. Here, take over for me, 76.”

She rolled her chair out of the way, and Jack moved in front of the screen, clicking through the intro movie to the start screen. Instead of the typical map and start buttons, there were pictures of MEKA pilots, military photos with dates underneath.

“It's all the ones who haven't made it back to base after a fight,” D.Va said, quietly, as Jack looked over the photos.

“Is all of MEKA so young?” He asked, finally tearing his gaze away from one picture, a man maybe D.Va’s age, smiling but with tear tracks running down his face. Too young, in his opinion, but Overwatch had also recruited young so saying anything would be beyond hypocritical, even if almost no one knew who he really was.

“We needed our best for the MEKA program, and the best just so happened to be young.” D.Va said with a shrug. “There's a few older members—thirties and forties, but most of us are in our twenties.”

The words ‘and younger’ were unspoken, but Jack already knew that. D.Va was proof enough.

“Right, so, just new game then?” He asked, trying to ignore the faces that stared out at him from the start menu. She nodded, and he clicked in, hoping that he wouldn't have to meet the faces of more young, dead, soldiers. Instead, there was a video, a woman in military garb speaking in Korean, and while Jack was willing to watch it and attempt to figure out the gist of it, D.Va reached over and clicked out of it.

“It’s just a video explaining the omnic, not like we don’t already know about it. So—“ She pointed to the screen, where instead of the usual ‘create-a-game’ menu was, the game was just starting.

The map was Korea, cities placed at every instance where they were in the real world, although Jack faintly remembered Busan having to be moved a few kilometres inland after one of the last attacks. There where no build or buy options, no way to make more units than the 6 he appeared to have pre-made, and there was just one goal.

Survive the attack.

“Each unit is a 6 person MEKA squad. We also have one or two extra training squads, because our rate of turn over is so high, but that wasn’t programmed in.” The fact that she could talk about how many of her fellow soldiers had already, and would, die from the omnic was almost chilling. But she was young, and humour had always helped him cope, so there was no way to say if it was the same for her. “The omnic attacks at the end of 10 turns, and can’t be killed yet, only driven away.”

“Is driving it away really the only option?” Jack asked, and D.Va nodded.

“Lord knows we wish there was a way to kill it, but no, nothing so far. I’ll show you the pre-set strategies after, but first I want to see how you do against it.”

Jack nodded, unpausing the game and looking over the gameboard again. “I assume that the cities are evacuated when it attacks, or is it so randomized that it’s almost not worth the evac?”

“They call for a warning once the season starts, but it hasn't attacked in a consistent date in a long time. Most people don't live in the attack zone anymore, but there's still a few.” D.Va leaned forwards, watching as Jack clicked on one squad, moving them towards the coast.

He'd never seen footage of the omnic attacks, so he had no idea how or when it attacked. He was going into it completely blind. After a few moments of thinking, he clicked down, moving the electronic squads to the tiles he wanted them on.

One near Busan, one slightly down the coast, two hidden by an outcropping of rock near the water to the north, one over the ocean about two clicks from shore, and one further inland. As much as he wanted to ask D.Va if he'd placed the squads in a good area, Jack figured it would be fruitless.

“Interesting!” D.Va said, a small smile on her face as Jack clicked the final turn away, waiting for the omnic to pop into existence. “Most people don't go that route their first time on this program.”

“Do they go for a full-frontal assault usually?” He asked, leaning back as a short cutscene played, the video looking like actual footage of the omnic climbing out of the sea. “This is real footage, isn't it.”

“Yeah, from one of the first attacks, when it was exciting instead of terrifying.” She almost sounded bitter, and for a moment Jack wondered how many times MEKA pilots were put into danger because of civilian stupidity.  

He watched silently as the video finished, cutting out with cry of surprise and a blast of static, before it returned to the game board. The electronic version of the Omnic was—well it was huge for a unit in game. Where as the 6 person MEKA squads took up only one tile, the omnic took up 8.

“So, what’s your first move?” D.Va asked, and Jack frowned under his mask.

“It doesn’t attack on it’s first turn?” he asked instead of answering her, checking his units. Three of them were too far away to attack, and there was no way for him to check the attack range of the Omnic to know if they were in any danger. “And I have no idea what it’s movement and attack range is…I need to know that before I can make any moves.”

“Smart,” D.Va said. “And it doesn’t—even back home it waits for us to make the first move. And if we don’t go after it, then it targets civilians. We learned that the hard way…before I joined, though.”

Jack took that as a chance to stop asking questions and make his moves. The three out of range he simply had guard, while the others…

He moved two of the rest as far away as possible—not quite far enough for his liking but still far enough away to be somewhat safe. The third one, however, was a lost cause. It was positioned three tiles away from the omnic, and there was no way for him to move it out of range or into safety. And since the omnic wouldn’t attack first…

The computerized squad dived at it’s leg, a small tick of health disappearing from the health bar that appeared at the top of the screen. A futile attack, but something needed to start the simulation.

The rest of the game flew by—the omnic’s attack range not as large as he assumed it would be, but still larger than some, and in five minutes Jack was staring at the ‘game over’ screen, flashing ominously at him. Still, despite his units going down faster than fish in a barrel, he managed to deplete the omnic’s health by a third, as well as draw it out to sea and away from any lingering civilians, to limit casualties.

“You probably could have chased it off if you didn’t do that,” D.Va pointed out, the game replaying his moves, motioning to his deadly decision to have his units lure the gigantean omnic away.

“True, but at sea there’s no civilians, and if there are any boats on the water during this time…Well.” He shrugged, and D.Va grinned.

“There’s no civilians in this game to protect, though,” she said, but Jack only shrugged again.

“But if this was a real life scenario, that would be something to keep in mind.”

D.Va nodded. “True! I’m saving this round, by the way—You’re one of the first people to take that into consideration, as far as I know, and that means you’re my new partner, 76.” The grin on the younger woman’s face grew wider, and Jack momentarily wondered what on earth he’d gotten himself into. “What do you say to playing a game against me? Just a quick run of Civ 9?”

It was quarter past 4 in the afternoon, and Jack knew that he was going to be called to help serve supper sooner rather than later, that D.Va probably had reports to make back to her home base and to Winston.

“Sure, why not,” he said, and D.Va nearly vaulted out of her seat to get her other computer set up for him. “I refuse to play as the States, though.”

“What, really?” her eyes seemed to dance as she glanced up at home, clicking away. “I figured, you know, with your whole ensemble…”

“Hey now, what’s wrong with it?” he replied, pointedly not letting his eyes focus on a picture of her and her neon pink mecha. “I mean I know it’s a little—” he made a motion with his hand, and D.Va snickered.

“Yeah it’s a bit…garish. Okay!” she admitted, before standing up and away from the other computer. “You’re set up—If you’re any good, we can get you set up with some online profiles.”

Jack decided to ignore the comment about profiles, and focused in on the minor slight. “If I’m any good? D.Va, you’re in for a challenge, more likely,” he shot back, grinning to himself as she made a shocked little noise.

“Oh, you’re _so_ going down!”

* * *

 

Half an hour into the game—D.Va playing as Korea and Jack as Switzerland—and D.Va was grinding her teeth, muttering to herself as she clicked away on her side of the board. Jack was grinning still, inching his troops closer and closer to her capital city, prepared to take it by force.

“You have to be cheating,” she hissed, sitting back and letting her turn finish.

“Why would I cheat? It’s more fun to just be good at this,” he replied, guiding his fictional army around D.Va’s men and began his attack.

She only snarled, and began her counter-attack.

* * *

 

An hour into the game and Jack was stumped. He had D.Va on the ropes, but now…now he was scrambling to recall his men back to cover the cities while his construction projects finished.

“Now who’s cheating?” he asked, tilting his head to the side, then growling as another unit was massacred. “Damn.”

D.Va had shifted positions, sitting on her chair backwards as she snickered, watching as Jack neared his doom with each attack. “Me, cheat? Never!” A grin bloomed, and Jack sighed, ready to eat his own words from earlier. “It’s more fun to be good at this instead, right 76?”

* * *

 

Two hours in, and Jack sat back as D.Va cheered, throwing one fist into the air.

“Ha! Beat you!”

“Barely,” Jack pointed out, and D.Va snorted, waving a hand in the air.

“I still beat you and that’s all that counts,” she said, before cocking her head to the side. “I had fun though… There’s no one else here who I can play with and actually have a challenge.”

Jack wasn’t sure if he should like the look that was on D.Va’s face, but decided that if she had something in mind for him, he really wasn’t going to have any choice.

“Will you play again with me? And can I record our games? I’ve been meaning to start a new weekly video series, and I know my fans would love this!”

Jack hesitated. He wasn’t really that eager to reveal to the world that Soldier 76 was working with the new Overwatch, but at the same time he’d also had fun. It’d been a long time since he had to wrack his brain for new strategies and tactics in the field, and playing against D.Va was more fun than playing the game against the computer.

“…yeah, sure. That sounds fun,” he said, before freezing as D.Va, and a handheld camera, were suddenly in his space.

“Well, no time like the present, huh? Let’s record the intro, go get something to eat if there’s any left, and start the game! Oh, and we should get you set up with a youtube account too—do you have an email to use for that?” Jack just stared at her, the bafflement he felt easily sensed. “Okay! Well, lets get you all set up then—email, youtube, an account for my forums, all of those kinds of things.”

What on earth had he agreed to?

**Author's Note:**

> I love love love the Dad!76 and Daughter!D.Va fics and everything but I decided that I wanted to write a friendship fic and now I also love love love these two as nerdy friends who play old video games together.
> 
> If you think of it, i think Fareeha is the only other OW character to still hold some kind of military rank? But I like the idea of Hana being like... the best of the best and 100% capable of commanding a bunch of illegal soldiers in battle
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Personal Tumblr](http://happyleech.tumblr.com/) / [Overwatch Tumblr](http://over-swatch.tumblr.com/) / [TextsFromLastNight Overwatch Tumblr](http://textsfromwatchpointgibraltar.tumblr.com/)


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